A man has admitted assaulting a Liverpool fan outside the club’s Anfield stadium ahead of a Champions League semi-final.

Simone Mastrelli pleaded guilty to attacking Sean Cox, 53, who was left with severe brain injuries before Liverpool played Roma last April.

At Preston Crown Court, Mastrelli, 30 and from Rome, admitted the attack but denied violent disorder.

Mr Cox, from Dunboyne, County Meath, was left in a coma after the attack.

Mastrelli, who was extradited last month after being arrested on a European Arrest Warrant in Italy, is due to be sentenced later.

Two others jailed

Mr Cox, a father-of-three, suffered serious catastrophic head injuries in the attack and has been recovering at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire.

He spent four-and-a-half weeks at the Walton Centre in Liverpool, a specialist neurological unit for brain injuries, following the attack on 24 April, before being airlifted to another specialist unit at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital.